


Humvee + Over the Shoulder Carry

by TANGOCHARLIE



Series: The Carries [1]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Hurt Angus Macgyver (Macgyver 2016), Hurt/Comfort, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-31 02:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21047933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TANGOCHARLIE/pseuds/TANGOCHARLIE
Summary: The first time Jack carried Mac





	Humvee + Over the Shoulder Carry

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the first of hopefully many collaborations of a few anonymous authors. The hiatus is long and we're missing our favorite found family. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!

A low hissing noise forces Jack to wake. His peaceful sleep disappears as his head pounds with a deep throbbing ache that keeps time with his pulse. 

He groans, opening his eyes, then snapping them shut again with a flinch. Bright sunlight pierces too wide pupils. 

His mouth waters and he swallows convulsively against the nausea. 

His whole world feels off its axis, listing to the left. He tries to piece together where he is and what happened and why everything hurts like Obi-Wan threw him… his horse, not the Jedi Master.

He draws in a deep breath to force himself awake and instantly regrets it when his bruised ribs spasm. Short, panting wheezes, his tight chest resisting each inhale, pursing his lips to slow his breathing. 

He forces his eyes opened again, slower this time, giving his head a warning and his body a chance to adjust. He’s leaning heavily against the door of the Humvee. His window flush against desert sands, explaining the rolling in his stomach and the off-kilter feelings. 

The vehicles in on its side. The cracked windshield fogging with steam pouring from the radiator. 

The memory of his last moments awake flood his mind and send his heart racing. 

MacGyver yelling, right before the explosion that sent them reeling, noticing something in the pattern of the windblown sand, and Jack jerked the wheel hard. It wasn’t enough to avoid the buried landmine, but it flipped the vehicle rather than splitting the humvee like a can opener and turning their insides into soup. 

Speaking of, Jack turns toward the passenger seat. MacGyver hangs from his seatbelt. His left arm falls limply across the middle console. Dried blood from his nose streaked across his face and lips. 

Jack catches the hand that hangs near him, his fingers wrap around the kid’s wrist to find a pulse, steady and strong. He breathes a sigh of relief. He’s gotten kind of fond of his annoying bomb tech these last couple of weeks. He’s never lost one yet, despite Mac’s attempts to break his record.

Jack pushes himself up to get a better look at Mac. There are blood smears onto the collar of his flak jacket, dripping from a small cut on his neck. It’s not too deep but still oozing, and just out of reach from Jack’s examining fingertips. 

“Hey, kid? Can you hear me?”

There’s no response.

Jack leans his head back against the seat, closing his eyes and breathing as deeply as he can against protesting ribs. The exertion makes him feel like he’s spinning on a tilt-a-whirl at the county fair, but instead of bright flashes of colorful lights, it’s a steady sea of beige blending together in front of his eyes.

After catching his breath he leans forward to peer out the cracked windshield. From his limited vantage point, it looks like just dry, dusty desert. No puffs of sand stirred up by someone waiting to see who would fall into their trap. Small mercies.

With shaky hands, Jack reaches for the radio. 

“This is Snakebite One-One, come in, over.”

The radio squeals in response and makes Jack flinch.

His fingers are clumsy as he fiddles with the dials, succeeding in finding more static and higher-pitched squeals that pierce his skull and increase the ache in his head. His free hand presses against his eyes.

“Could use your help right now, kid,” Jack mumbles but his tech remains quiet. 

Jack weighs his options, trying to bring forward foggy memories of how far from the forward operating base they were when the explosion rocked them. Jack leans to look out the window again, frowning, searching for a familiar landmark. It doesn’t distress him to not recognize anything, between his blurry vision, and the monochromatic beige there isn’t much for him to recognize. He thinks they were about ten klicks out.

A six mile hike wouldn’t make him blink in normal circumstances, but it’s a lot of open ground to cover in Afghanistan, carrying his specialist with no backup, and no one aware yet of their distress. 

The Humvee is heating up, in the afternoon sun. It offers shade, but they’re going to cook in this tin can. 

And there’s the possibility of someone coming back to check on their trap. He doesn’t want to be here when they show up.

And it’s getting late.

A few hours to sundown. That hot sun will give way to a frigid night. He doesn’t want to be stuck out in the open when night falls. 

Jack’s door is crumpled against the sand. He can’t climb over Mac to reach the window, or release him from his seatbelt without him falling against Jack and further pinning them in place. And Jack has a feeling that even if he wakes, Mac isn’t going to be in any condition to scramble out the passenger side window. 

Jack pulls himself up in the seat, cursing the confined space as he squirms to get his legs from under the dash. Huffing, he wriggles into position to kick out the windshield. Already cracked, it takes two solid kicks to loosen it from its frame, and roll the tempered glass back from the vehicle creating an opening large enough for Jack to escape through. Once half out of the Humvee, Jack turns, releasing Mac’s safety belt, catching his partner’s weight with a grunt. Mac is skinny, but he’s all muscle, solidly built. 

Jack slides his arms under MacGyver’s and across his chest, pulling him from the vehicle, panting from exertion, muscles straining with effort. 

He props MacGyver up against the hood of the Humvee, pulling aside his camo, running his hands across Mac’s torso, searching for injuries, when he sees Mac’s pant leg torn open, blood soaking the ragged edges. Jack rips open the tear to reveal a large gash in Mac’s thigh. It’s deep, the edges pulling away from each other. 

Hand shaking, Jack rummages through his field first aid kit, finding and tearing open a package of quikclot.

“This is gonna hurt,” Jack warns his still unconscious partner before he starts to pack the wound. 

Mac moans, the muscles of his leg twitching as the gauze packing burns, expanding into the wound and sealing it. 

“Easy, easy,” Jack murmurs, holding the injured limb still to let the quikclot set. 

He searches MacGyver for additional injuries, hands skimming over ribs, through his hair, and down each extremity, before grabbing a handful of gauze to press against the smaller wound on his neck, the area already clotting off, Jack tapes the bandage in place to keep the stiff collar of his jacket from rubbing on the wound and opening it again. 

Jack scans the horizon, looking for threats, before he scrambles through the busted out windshield to grab their gear, extra ammunition and anything he can’t risk leaving behind to be found by unfriendlies, before turning his attention back to MacGyver again.

“Hey, Carl’s Jr,” Jack pats his cheek.

Mac groans in response.

“Come on, kid, nap time’s over,” Jack’s fingers press into Mac’s eyelid, prying each one back to check out his pupils.

Mac bats his hand away. 

“Alright, you want me to stop? Gotta open those eyes.”

Slowly, blue irises appear, confused and cloudy with pain.

“You with me kid?”

“Um,” MacGyver swallows hard. “What happened?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” Jack asks, assessing MacGyver’s mental state.

The kid looks around, taking in the shattered windshield next to him, then back up to Jack’s face. “Explosion… uh, a mine, in the sand. You got around it?”

“Mostly. We gotta get outta here before anyone comes around to check on it. Think you can stand if I help you? Humvee took a pretty big bite out of your leg.”

Mac pauses, self-assessing. He nods, then closes his eyes when the motion spikes the pain in his head. 

Jack links an arm under Mac’s shoulder, hauling him upright. 

The sudden change in position causes Mac’s vision to go dark for a moment. He scrambles to get his feet under him and nearly goes down in a tumble of gangly limbs, if not for Jack’s strong grip.

Mac latches onto the straps of Jack’s jacket and holds on, shivering and shaking with the effort to hold himself upright.

“I got it,” Mac whispers through clenched teeth. His thigh on fire with the strain bear his weight. “Give me a second. I’ll be good.”

“Like hell,” Jack retorts, easing him back down into the sand, leaning against the vehicle. “Change of plans,” he murmurs, as he tears open their packs, consolidating the contents into one.

“I can do it,” Mac argues, eyes closed as he breathes heavily against the nausea and pain that plague him. 

“I can’t carry your pack, my pack and drag you along,” Jack says examining each item carefully before he decides to pack or discard it.

Mac bites his lip. The dried blood from his nose flaking off between his teeth. 

“Yeah, okay,” he says looking up at the setting sun, then at his surroundings. “I’ll--I’ll be fine here until you send help back.” 

Jack spins to look at him with a hard, confused frown. “You are not what I’m leaving behind here.”

“I can guard the Humvee then,” Mac murmurs. “It won’t be dark for a few hours. Can’t let the supplies get into enemy hands.”

"Supplies aren’t important.”

“But there are explosives…”

“You know why you bomb nerds are the only guys in the Army that get a bodyguard?” Jack yells, suddenly feeling a surge of fear that turns into anger at the very idea of leaving Mac alone out here. “Do you know what they’d do to you if they caught you? Especially knowing that you’re EOD. Tear your limbs off one by one on a live stream. Strap you to a rocket and turn your insides into strawberry jelly.”

“I get it, Jack,” MacGyver mumbles, looking at the ground.

“Do you? Do you realize you’d be lucky if they sent your head back to us in a box?” He can’t stop yelling at the kid, and a small part of him feels guilty at aiming the brunt of his irrational anger at Mac. Another part of him feels satisfaction when Mac’s already blanched face turns a shade paler. The kid takes too many risks. 

“Yeah, I get it!”

Jack forces himself to calm down, finishes shoving the remaining supplies into his pack, and slipping it onto his back. Next, he reaches for Mac. 

“I can walk,” Mac argues, as Jack leans down to lift him. “If you give me a hand, I can do it.”

Jack blows out a frustrated sigh, then hauls Mac up, draping Mac’s arm around his shoulders. Wrapping his arm around the kid’s waist to keep him upright. 

The stumble and stutter across the desert sand, in a terrible imitation of a three-legged race. Mac hobbles on his injured leg, sucking in a breath of pain as his leg spasms with exertion. 

"We ain’t getting very far like this,” Jack says wiping sweat from his face, and eyeing the sun’s location. He fixes MacGyver with a look when the kid starts to open his mouth. “Don’t get any stupid ideas about leaving me leaving you behind.” 

He ducks his shoulder, until Mac’s middle is resting against it, and then lifts with his legs, ignoring Mac’s cries of protest.

“What are you doing?” Mac says struggling against Jack’s hold. “I can walk.”

“You’re gonna tear that leg open again limpin’ on it like that.”

“You can’t carry me all the way back,” Mac protests.

“You’re not much heavier than being decked out in full TAC. I got this,” Jack presses on, puffs of sand blowing into his eyes, despite his sunglasses, struggling against the elements and the weight of Mac in his arm.

"Hey, Carl's Jr, quit squirmin,'" Jack snaps at the young man over his shoulder, but MacGyver keeps wriggling. Jack tightens his grip, holding him steady, but the movement of the kid against his shoulder causes it to ache. "MacGyver, knock it off!"

The kid's struggling doesn't let up.

"Mac!" Jack reaches up and with a flick of his wrist, pops the kid across the seat of his pants.

Mac freezes and Jack stumbles.

"Did you just..."

"I told you to stop squirming," Jack grumbles, feeling every bit as surprised as Mac at his action. He can feel Mac’s muscles tense against his shoulder and back. 

“And I told you I can walk,” Mac grinds out between clenched teeth.

“Not if we want to make it back to base before nightfall.”

“Put me down,” Mac growls.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Jack begins. 

“I’m not a child for you to pick up and tote around or to… to…” 

“Listen, I’m sorry,” Jack interrupts Mac’s sputtering. “I shouldn’t have hit ya.” 

Mac struggles again. 

“I’ll do it again if you don’t stop though.”

The kid stops and Jack almost smiles. 

“Just let me help ya, kid.”

Mac doesn’t reply. Jack can feel Mac settling against his shoulders. Not wriggling or struggling to get away, but acquiescing to his position and Jack’s request.

Sand swirls around them, coating their skin. Leaving a dusting over Jack’s tongue. 

“I should have seen it.”

Jack frowns. “The mine?”

He feels Mac nod against his back. 

“You did see it.”

“Not soon enough.“

“You stopped us from driving up right on top of it. Wouldn’t even have been enough left over to send home to your momma if you hadn’t yelled when you did.” 

“My m-- I’m not--” Mac shakes his head and starts over. “My job is to find and disarm explosives.

“Ordnance disposal, dude. We disposed of that,” Jack laughs. “Rolled that bad boy.” 

“But you’re hurt, and carrying me.”

“You did your job, now I’m doing mine. Protecting you. Now hush up back there,” Jack says. “Just rest.”

Mac is quiet for a minute, and Jack is feeling smug to get that last word. But since he met MacGyver he’s never gotten the last word, so it doesn’t last.

“Thank you,” Mac says. “I don’t think I’ve ever had anyone who would carry me back.”

Jack’s heart clenches at Mac’s words. Reminded again for at least the third time since he stepped off what should have been his transport home two days ago, that he made the right decision to stay. 

“Well, I’m a one in a million kind of overwatch,” Jack teases to hide the emotions in his voice.

“I don’t just mean as an overwatch,” Mac says softly. “There isn’t… there wouldn’t be any… there’s just Bozer.”

“What’s a Bozer?”

“There isn’t anyone to send my remains to.”

Jack’s steps falter. 

“Are you okay, Jack ?” Mac asks concerned. “Do you need to take a break?”

“No, I’m just” Jack shakes his head trying to look over his shoulder at the kid. He just drops that bombshell about being alone in the world and he’s worried about Jack. “There’s no one at home?”

Mac shrugs awkwardly. “Bozer, and his family I guess. We’ve been friends since we were kids.”

_ You’re still a kid, _ Jack wants to say, but stays quiet. It’s one of the first times Mac’s really started opening up and he doesn’t want to stop him.

“My mom died when I was five. My dad took off a few years later. Harry, my grandfather, he did his best to raise me right, but he wasn’t young anymore. And I wasn’t an easy kid to raise. I didn’t mean any harm but curiosity killed the cat, right?” Mac huffs.

“Satisfaction brought him back,” Jack continues the often forgotten ending.

“No one ever knows that part,” Mac says.

Jack smiles. “I guess I wasn’t an easy kid to raise either.”

“Wish you’d been in Mission City. I think they threw a party when I finally left home,” Mac says. “Harry did his best, but I split my time with him and the Bozers. And he passed away right before I enlisted.”

And just like that, the pieces of Mac that Jack’s been trying to sort through click into place. The kid sees himself as expendable. He’s not used to having anyone worry about him.

And Jack’s heart beats painfully. The kid’s pop walked away from him. Out the door. Maybe got on a plane to leave him behind and didn’t get off. Didn’t worry that he was making a mistake leaving him behind. Didn’t worry about who would be watching out for him. About who would make sure the kid was safe and healthy. Trusted someone else to do his job for him. 

He remembers being that kid. The one without a father. Except that was his own stubbornness, he was the one who left. Not that his pop tried to stop him. He wandered for years, feeling like he didn’t have a place to call home, even though he always knew deep down if he called his pop would come for him. If he needed a place to stay, the ranch was always open. 

It’s hard for him to imagine feeling alone in the world. 

Neither Jack nor Mac fully realize it in the moment, but Jack just adopted his twenty year old bomb nerd. 

A pulsing beat from helicopter blades echoes through the desert. Jack freezes listening intently, looking toward the sky. “It’s one of ours!” 

The bird lands, Jack turns shielding their eyes from the backwash of the rotor blades. 

“Dalton! MacGyver! We’ve been looking for you since you missed your check in. Saw the Humvee burning and thought for sure you were a goner.” 

* * *

Mac is resting in a hospital bed with his leg propped up on pillows. The quikclot removed, he’s been thoroughly cleaned and stitched and an IV full of antibiotics drips into his arm. 

The door opens and Jack is pushed through in a wheelchair.

“I can walk,” he grouses at the medic. 

Mac smiles.

“Oh, you think it’s funny?”

“I recognize the humor in the situation,” Mac says. “What took you so long?”

“A concussion, bruised ribs, and dehydration is enough to be kept for observation, but not enough to be rushed back after triage,” Jack says, settling onto the empty bed in the double room, waving away hands that reach to assist him. “You okay?”

“They’ll let me out of here tomorrow. Couple days off the duty roster and on antibiotics.”

Jack groans, settling back against the pillows. The bed at a forty-five degree angle to keep pressure off his ribs. “You ever been to Texas?”

“Uh, no. We didn’t do much traveling, except up to my grandfather’s fishing cabin. He didn’t like flying.”

“You come by your fear of heights honestly then,” Jack teases. “Nothing like the wide open spaces. Yeah, I know, haha, everything’s bigger in Texas, but it’s true.”

“Even the personalities,” Mac mumbles to himself, watching Jack out of the corner of his eye.

“Boy howdy,” Jack says in agreement. “You can stand in the middle of the ranch and there’s no one around for miles, just you and the blue skies. I’ll take one of the horses and momma will pack a lunch enough to feed three people, or just me after a day of riding and fixin’ fences, keep riding til dark. That’s the best time of day, when the sun starts setting and the cicadas are screamin’ and you ride up to the house and it’s all aglow. Always a spot for you at the table.” 

Mac feels his heart sink a little as Jack starts reminiscing. It’s not that he expected Jack to stick around. Or do something dumb like follow him back to California. But he had mostly stopped his homesick ramblings over the last few weeks, and if Mac is honest with himself, it stings a little to hear Jack so openly missing home. 

“When we get back, that’s first on the agenda,” Jack is saying as Mac tunes back in to the conversation.

He doesn’t reply though. He doesn’t have anything to say. That awkward moment he always tries to escape in the barracks when one of the guys gets homesick, or a package from home, and they all start talking about families and home cooked meals and traditions. 

A moment later a soft projectile smacks him in the face. He looks up, startled.

“Didn’t realize you knocked your noggin’ so hard that it affected your reflexes.”

Mac picks up Jack’s pillow and sticks it behind his own head. 

“Hey!” Jack protests. 

“Thought you didn’t want it, since you were throwing it.”

“Wow, maybe I won’t take you home with me. You and momma are gonna get on too well, forge an alliance and start ganging up on me.”

“What?”

“Did you listen to a word I said?”

“I tuned out somewhere around riding horses and fixing fences.”

“Well, don’t do that around momma, she gets cranky when little ears don’t listen.”

“What are you talking about?” Mac asks, brow furrowing in confusion.

“You really weren’t listening to me!” Jack exclaims, offended. 

Mac shrugs.

“Well, as I was saying before I was so rudely… ignored, I think the first thing on the agenda when we get discharged, after stopping in to see the Bozers and thank them for making sure you turned out as well as you did, is to take a trip out to the Ranch.”

Mac frowns in confusion. 

Jack sits up, throwing bare legs over the side of the bed, looking closer at Mac. “What’s wrong? Are you having trouble hearing me? Or thinking? Do I need to call someone? They scanned your head when you got here right?”

“Yes, I’m fine, I just… you want to go see the Bozers?”

Jack nods slowly, still watching Mac.

“Before you go home?”

“Well, before we go visit my mom’s home,” Jack says, all teasing aside. “If you’re okay with that. We don’t have to rush out there. We can spend plenty of time in California first. Do you still have your granddad’s fishing cabin? We could stop up there too, if you want.”

“Yeah, okay,” Mac says slowly, still trying to wrap his head around everything Jack is suggesting, trying not to read too much into the idea that Jack might not be leaving him behind once they get home.

“Am I the one not making sense?” Jack asks, rubbing a hand through his short bristly hair. “It sounds right in my head, but are my brains scrambled and I’m talking some sort of gibberish?”

“No more than usual,” Mac smiles. “I just never expected that you’d want me to stick around after we went home.” 

“Well, now,” Jack stands and takes a step closer to Mac’s bed. “I admit that you can be stubborn, and annoying, and kind of a know-it-all. And heaven help me if you ever actively try to piss me off instead of just messin’ with me. But I’d kind of like to keep you around for a while. Something tells me we’ve got some of our best adventures waitin’ for us.”

Mac smiles that slow, shy smile that Jack is beginning to recognize. He takes a moment to watch it before yanking both pillows out from behind Mac’s head and diving back into his own bunk.

“Hey!” Mac exclaims. “That’s not fair!”

“Shouldn’t have kept it.”

“You shouldn’t have thrown it.”

With a sigh, Jack examines both pillows, decides which one is the fluffiest and holds the other back out to Mac, pulling it just out of arm’s reach a few times when the kid makes a grab for it. Mac growls and Jack laughs before handing the pillow back to him. 

The nurse comes in to let them know it’s lights out. Mac makes a show of fluffing his pillow a few times before sticking it behind his head. 

The rest of the hospital slowly quiets. He listens to Jack’s rhythmic breathing. 

“Did you know your accent gets thicker when you start talking about Texas?”

  
  



End file.
